Description:
Historically, the EU is both curious and controversial: it is hard to explain from a state-centrist view the delegation of sovereignty and the fragile agreement on the gradual extension of the EU powers together with externalizations of the decision making to a polity that can be described, as Jacques Delors expressed it, as an unidentified political object. However, in the last 60 years, the European Union absorbed increasing amounts of intellectual and political energies that attempted to singularly or complementary explain the nature of the ‘beast’ and the logic of the processes unfolded within. A large amount of theoretical assumptions, methodological choices and explanatory techniques were imported from different fields of research to constitute what gradually took the shape of the EU studies. Still today, the European Union is seen as a unique project of regional integration that is unsettled and unfinished and yet a particular scientific vocabulary takes shape and influences research and policy making. The Euroacademia International Conference aims to take into account the enormous creative energies invested in understanding and shaping the project of the European Union from the limited competences granted at the creation of the European Economic Community till the current formulation of the post-national understandings of its evolution.

>From neo-functionalism to constructivism as IR theoretical imports to the EU seen as a political system in itself or as a post-national order, an overwhelming variety of puzzles and controversies animate the arena of the EU studies and bring partial agreements, alternative explanations, mutually exclusive proposals and unpredicted consequences regarding vital factors that shape the EU as a polity. Even the explanatory models often considered outdated prove to be resourceful in confronting determined policies, processes or institutional choices inside the EU. The innovation together with constant reevaluation, reformulation and revisiting of the past accounts seem to be the trademark of the EU studies. The plurality of approaches stands as the optimal choice in dealing with the diverse, multileveled, multitiered and multicentered reality of the European Union. Yet the advantage of plurality was also often used to blame the epistemological weaknesses and inaccuracies resulted from fragmentation and limited empirical applicability of particular trends inside European studies. The excessive conceptual imports from other fields and the limited methodological creativity were also established as skeptical positionings towards the European studies seen as a cohesive field of research and scholarship.

The Euroacademia International Conference ‘Reviewing the Trends: The European Union from a Regulatory Institution to a Post-national Cosmopolitan Order’ aims to bring openly on the floor of debate and discussion both the past and the contemporary trends in the study of the European Union trough the use of the magnifying glasses. The conference seeks to create an opportunity for evaluative accounts of essential developments within the study of the European Union. These accounts are to be understood as creative moments for articulating current concerns in the frame of disciplinary dialogue and methodological constrains or opportunities provided by the established traditions in the field of European studies. It is an opportunity for revisiting and assessing the persistent epistemological challenges in the field, the inheritances and their creative potential, the orthodoxies but also heresies.

The conference welcomes panel and paper proposals dealing with one or multiple traditions, trends and methodological choices within the arena of European studies. The panels and papers are expected to provide a critical assessment or a comprehensive valorization of one of the central or out of the mainstream approaches applied to the European Union. Papers that address new puzzles, alternative theoretical choices or methodological corrections/innovations are welcomed. Both theoretical and empirical enquiries are equally considered.

Panels:
The conference is organized yet by no means restricted to the following panels:

Before the European Union: The Initial Assumptions and the Historical Choices Revisited
Neo-Functionalism and the Persistence of Spill-over Effects
The EU Studies and IR Conceptual Imports: An Assessment
The Regulatory Theory and EU efficiency
Intergovernmentalism and Pursuing State Interest inside the EU
Liberal Intergovernmentalism, Methodological Virtues and Limits
Constructivism: The New Kid of IR
Addressing the European Identity: Where and How to Measure It?
The Lessons of Enlargements
EU as a Political System
EU as a Normative Power
Working Hard to Find a European Demos
Policy-making inside the EU and the Logic of the fait accompli
Cosmopolitanism and the EU as a Post-National Order
The Effects of Crises on the EU
Debating Epistemological Choices When Studying the EU

Participant’s Profile

The conference is addressed to academics, researchers and professionals with a particular interest in European Union from all parts of the world. As the nature of the conference is intended to be multidisciplinary in nature different academic backgrounds are welcomed.

Post-graduate students, doctoral candidates and young researchers are welcome to submit an abstract. Representatives of INGOs, NGOs, Think Tanks and activists willing to present their work with impact on or influenced by specific understandings of the European Union are welcomed as well to submit the abstract of their contribution.

A specific spot in the conference program will be dedicated to social networking and therefore all the participants interested in setting or developing further cooperation agendas and prospects with other participants will have time to present and/or promote their project and express calls for cooperation. A specific setting for promotional materials connected with the topic of the conference will be reserved for the use of participants. Books authored or edited by the participants can be exhibited and promoted during the whole period of the conference and can also be presented within the conference package based on prior arrangements.

Selected papers will be published in an electronic volume with ISBN after the confirmation of the authors and a double peer-review process based on an agreed publication schedule. All the papers selected for publication should be original and must not have been published elsewhere. All participants to the conference will receive a copy of the volume.

Paper Proposals
Deadline: 15 January 2012

The 300 words abstracts and the affiliation details should be submitted in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this order:
1) author(s), 2) affiliation, 3) email address, 4) title of abstract, 5) body of abstract 6) preferred panel
The abstract and details can be sent to application@euroacademia.eu<mailto:application@euroacademia.eu> with the name of the conference specified in the subject line or submitted directly through the On-line Application Form available at http://euroacademia.eu/conference/reviewing-the-trends/
We will acknowledge the receipt of all proposals. Abstracts will be reviewed and the participants are selected based on the proven quality of the abstract. The submitted paper for the conference proceedings is expected to be in accordance with the lines provided in the submitted abstract.

IMPORTANT DATES: If your paper was accepted a notification of acceptance will be sent to you by 20th of January 2012. Your confirmation of attendance will be expected until 25th of January 2012, and until the 1st of February 2012 the payment of the participation fee through bank transfer is requested. No paper will be introduced in the program without confirmation and payment of the participant fee. By 15th of February 2012, the full paper is to be sent according with the style standards provided to the accepted participants by organizers. All papers will be uploaded on the website as drafts available for consultation for other participants and the public.The conference will be held in English and will focus on the discussion of 5,000–6,000-words, pre-circulated papers.

Euroacademia is a non-profit organization, founded in Vienna (Austria), aiming to foster academic cooperation, networking and a platform for dissemination and valorization of academic research results, trends, and emerging themes within the area of concern for European studies, political science, critical studies, cultural studies, history, anthropology, social psychology, semiotics, philosophy, sociology and wider and inclusive interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary approaches that contribute to a better understanding of the ‘self-organizing vertigo’ (Edgar Morin) of the European realm. Euroacademia’s goal is to become a hub for academic interaction on and about Europe.

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